Swift Concurrency

The Swift Concurrency skill enables AI agents to write and execute asynchronous Swift code using modern concurrency primitives like async/await, actors, and global actors. It allows agents to handle non-blocking operations efficiently while maintaining type safety and avoiding data races in iOS and macOS applications.

When to use it

• Building responsive UIs that perform heavy network or disk I/O without freezing the main thread.
• Managing complex state updates across multiple concurrent tasks in SwiftUI or UIKit apps.
• Implementing secure, isolated actor-based services for shared mutable resources.
• Writing background processing logic that automatically handles cancellation and error propagation.

Key capabilities

• Async/Await Syntax: Native support for writing asynchronous functions that look synchronous.
• Actors: Enforces strict isolation rules to prevent data races on shared state.
• Global Actors: Provides a way to access global resources safely from any context.
• Task Groups: Allows running multiple concurrent tasks and awaiting their collective completion.
• Structured Concurrency: Automatically handles task cancellation, propagation, and cleanup.

Example prompts

• "Create an async function that fetches user data from an API using async/await and updates a SwiftUI view."
• "Write an actor to manage a shared shopping cart state safely across multiple concurrent tasks."
• "Implement a background task group that downloads three image assets in parallel and waits for all to finish before displaying them."

Tips & gotchas

Ensure your development environment targets iOS 15 or later, as Swift Concurrency is not available in older versions. When using actors, remember that they are single-threaded by default; use @Sendable types carefully when passing data across actor boundaries to avoid runtime errors.